The source of the much-publicized data is the “Mass Shooting Tracker” at shootingtracker.com, a crowdsourced page that defines a “mass shooting” as any in which “four or more people are shot in one event, or related series of events, likely without a cooling off period.” Victims might include the gunman; the data is based on news reports. There are obvious problems, one identified by the FBI in a 2014 report on active-shooter situations, which couches its own statistics by noting: A handful of those identified as “wounded” were not injured by gunfire but rather suffered injuries incidental to the event, such as being hit by flying objects/shattered glass or falling while running.

Now, when most people think “mass shooting”, they’re thinking of a “spree killing” – where a stranger randomly tries to kill a large number of random people he or she doesn’t know, for no purpose other than their own twisted desire for media immortality.

And that number – naturally – is, while tragic, much lower; I’ll add emphasis:

The Congressional Research Service [defines] “Mass murder” is a multiple homicide with at least four victims, not including the offender; a “mass shooting” is a mass murder committed with a firearm; and a “mass public shooting” is a mass shooting “in at least one or more public locations, such as a workplace, school, restaurant, house of worship, neighborhood, or other public setting . . . and not attributable to any other underlying criminal activity or commonplace circumstance (armed robbery, criminal competition, insurance fraud, argument, or romantic triangle).” Using these definitions, Grant Duwe, in his 2007 book Mass Murder in the United States: A History, notes: “Excluding those that occurred in connection with criminal activity such as robbery, drug dealing, and organized crime, there were 116 mass public shootings during the twentieth century” (emphasis mine). The Congressional Research Service reported 317 mass shootings between 1999 and 2013, only 66 of which qualified under their criteria as mass public shootings.

Too many? Sure.

But “Four per year” doesn’t sound as dramatic as “one per day”, does it?

The American left’s motto used to be “never waste a crisis”. Today, it seems to be “create the crisis you want”.